Documentary calls on Muslims in U.S. to be more inclusive

Atif Mahmud is one of the producers of "UnMosqued," a documentary focusing on the need for more inclusiveness in the way American Muslims worship.

Atif Mahmud is one of the producers of "UnMosqued," a documentary...

Islam reveres women as wives and mothers - living cradles of the faith. But in mosques throughout the nation, a new documentary asserts, Muslim women in the United States are treated as second-class citizens, relegated to separate and unequal worship spaces and turned away from leadership roles.

That paradox, the filmmakers say, strikes at the faith's American future.

Now available for Internet viewing, the hourlong movie, "unMosqued," was inspired by the experience of a young Muslim woman driven from her faith by ill treatment at her mosque.

"She had been so bullied at her mosque that she just didn't leave the mosque, she left Islam," said the film's co-producer, Atif Mahmud, a Houston business consultant. "She shared that story with me through her tears. … I wished I had a camera then so that I could capture her telling that story. I would have taken it to the mosque and played it again and again so they could see what they were doing to women."

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Mahmud charged that American mosques - almost 2.6 million Muslims live in the U.S. - also give short shrift to young American-born males and new converts.

"I believe we are at a tipping point in our mosques," he said. "If we don't turn the ship around very quickly, we will begin to see a sad withering away."

Mahmud's 2012 encounter with the disgruntled woman launched a frenetic 18-month round of filmmaking, a learn-as-you-go endeavor that took the documentary crew across the nation dozens of times.

Joining the 39-year-old Houston native as co-producers were the New Jersey husband-wife team of Ahmed Eid and Marwa Aly. None had filmmaking expertise. Much of the project's $75,000 budget came from their own pockets.

Central to the film, shown in limited nationwide screenings, is its assertion that many American mosques are in the iron grip of their aging, foreign-born founders. A national survey of Islamic worship centers, the film notes, found that 90 percent of imams - religious leaders - were born abroad. Less than half of U.S. mosques provide activities for women; almost a third bar women from serving on their boards of directors; just 23 percent provide classes for new converts.

Not unique to Islam

Orthodox Judaism and some Christian denominations also mandate separation of men and women during worship services. But Muslim women in the film say they feel like "second-class citizens" in gender-segregated prayer rooms that often are shabbier than those for men. Many are cramped and dirty. In some, barriers have been erected, making it impossible to see imams as they lead prayers and sermonize. One even provided a dingy restroom with no door.

Although featured in a National Public Radio news feature, the film, available online since June, has drawn little critical comment. Screenings at college campuses, including Rice University, however, sparked lively debates, with some viewers worrying that the movie was too harsh on older immigrant Muslims.

Hashim Badat, president of the Islamic Society of Greater Houston, said he has not viewed the documentary.

But, through a spokesman, Badat said he is in "complete agreement" that mosques should "be made more attractive and relevant to the lives of the youth, the next generation of leadership, with particular emphasis on making mosques more women friendly."

Such calls for reform are not new.

Film's focus 'healthy'

Ibrahim Hooper, national spokesman for the Council on American-Islamic Relations, said his organization has admonished mosque leaders to improve conditions for women and youth that "do not meet the high standards set by Islam."

The film's focus on such issues is "healthy," Hooper said. "We must debate them and come up with solutions. … As our society becomes more secular, institutions - be they Jewish, Christian, Muslim, or Buddhist - need to find ways to remain relevant."

While many American mosques started out as something else - churches, supermarkets, retail strip centers - even new purpose-built worship centers frequently provide smaller, less aesthetically pleasing prayer facilities for women, said Hamdi Rifai, managing partner of Winston Martin Construction, a major East Coast mosque builder.

"They use architects who are not experienced in designing mosques," said Rifai, who has not seen the film. "They'll tell the architects to design a 6,000-square-foot prayer room for men and, oh, by the way, only a 500-square-foot room for women. Women, they'll say, don't come as often. And the architects won't know any better."

Akbar Ahmed, Islamic studies director at American University in Washington, D.C., countered that some American mosques have become more inclusive, with men and women sharing a common prayer room divided by a line. "This is a revolutionary change in the way prayers are conducted in most Muslim countries, where men are lined up in the front rows and women are either at the back or in separate enclosures," he said. "I have even attended mosques in the U.S. with female imams leading prayers."

Still, he said, "There is little doubt that Muslim leadership in the U.S. needs to clearly and boldly express a vision for the community of an equitable, just and compassionate faith that embraces all regardless of sex, age or ethnicity."

Hind Makki, a Chicago Muslim whose website, "Side Entrance," chronicles women's issues in American mosques, said change is coming to male-dominated worship centers. "I think many mosques and their leaders are becoming more aware of women and young people," she said. "It's been on the radar a long time, but it's slow going."

Acknowledging debt

Although groups such as the Council on American-Islamic Relations have made recommendations, Makki noted, each mosque is autonomous, and no mechanism exists to expedite reforms. "Muslims don't have structures like Catholics," she noted.

Filmmaker Mahmud is the son of Pakistan-born immigrants. His father, he said, is a "mosque builder" who has been involved in the leadership of multiple Houston-area worship centers. "I've seen him and his friends create so much of the infrastructure that I pooh-pooh today," he said, adding that, despite his criticism, he acknowledges the debt Muslims owe his father's generation.

"We are honored to have these spaces they built," he said. "We don't assume there ever was any malicious intent. There was no pivotal moment when someone said they weren't going to change to accommodate these kids, these girls, these newfangled ideas."

Still, he said, many mosques have become "old Arab clubs." "They don't need to 'get it,' " he said of the elders' reluctance to embrace reform, "they just need to get a youth director."

Ideally, Mahmud said, reforms would lead to the presence of more women on boards of directors, youth programs, multi-language services and more emphasis on community service.

Emran El-Badawi, the "secular, left-leaning Muslim" director of the University of Houston's Arabic program, said such changes inevitably will come. But at present, he asserted, "You won't find one large community mosque in North America that deals with women or youth in a way that helps the community."

'This can't go on'

El-Badawi suggested that foreign-born mosque founders often came from traditional societies and, politically, virtual police states, in which women, while revered as wives and mothers, were not expected to function outside the home.

In the United States, they recoiled from a society seemingly wanton in its openness.

The result, he said, was an "almost allergic reaction." The mosque, he said, "became, front and center, a bubble environment as the community protected itself from drugs and sex. … The immigrants were well-intentioned, good people. It just takes a long period of adjustment. Muslims in America are just finding their voice."

Calling production of "unMosqued" a "labor of love," Mahmud said he and his New Jersey associates have no desire to further their careers in film.

"Now it's time for the consumers to propel it forward," he said of the project. "We never wanted to take ownership … Our only objective was to start conversations. We're tired of seeing people being hurt. We want to see this change happen, sooner rather than later. This can't go on for another 10 years."